When Structure Meets Personality: How Duality and Social Dominance Affect The Short Vs Long Term Focus of the CEO

Abstract

This study incorporates executive personality research into the study of CEO duality. Specifically, we propose that the effect of CEO duality on strategic decision making will depend on the CEO's level of social dominance. As CEO social dominance increases, CEO duality is associated with higher long-term perspective than CEO-Chair separation. Our research supports this theory by developing a unique measure of CEO social dominance through the use of pre-trained machine learning models. The results of our study indicate general support for our model in terms of long-term compensation, and R&D intensity. Thus, this study highlights the need to consider CEO personality when studying the effect of CEO duality on strategic decision making.

Keywords: CEO Duality, Executive personality, Executive compensation, R&D intensity